One significant benefit of hold - as opposed to separate, read-only storage - is that items are preserved within the Exchange infrastructure. This preserves more of the information, including metadata, and makes management easier for IT admins. Users benefit because they can manage their mailboxes using the familiar Outlook interface. From an IT-perspective, In-Place Hold eliminates the necessity and complexity of maintaining a separate infrastructure and potentially storage for Exchange items.

Exchange gives organizations the flexibility to choose the architecture that can help meet their immutability requirements, whether that is on-premises, online or a hybrid of both and supports the ability to store archived items in a separate physical location.

How to Handle Terminated Users in Office 365

Exchange Online makes it possible for you to preserve the contents of deleted mailboxes indefinitely. This feature is called “inactive mailboxes.” A mailbox becomes inactive when an In-Place Hold is placed on the mailbox before the corresponding license for an Office 365 user account is removed.

You do not have to pay for keeping inactive mailboxes.

The contents of an inactive mailbox are preserved indefinitely. This allows administrators, compliance officers or records managers to use the In-Place eDiscovery feature in Exchange Online to access and search the contents of an inactive mailbox. Inactive mailboxes can't receive email and aren't displayed in your organization's shared address book or other lists.

Note: If a hold isn't placed on a mailbox before it's deleted, the contents of the mailbox won't be preserved or discoverable. The mailbox can be recovered within 30 days of deletion, but the mailbox and its contents will be permanently deleted after 30 days if it isn't recovered.

To make a mailbox inactive, it must be assigned an Exchange Online Plan 2 (included in Office 365 E3 and E5 plans) or have an Exchange Online Archiving subscription so that an In-Place Hold can be placed on the mailbox before it's deleted.

1. Access the contents of an inactive mailbox

After you make a mailbox inactive by placing the mailbox on In-Place Hold and then deleting the corresponding Office 365 user account, you can access the contents of the inactive mailbox by using In-Place eDiscovery in the Exchange admin center (EAC). When you search an inactive mailbox, you can create a keyword search query to search for specific items or you can return the entire contents of the inactive mailbox. You can preview the search results, copy the search results to a discovery mailbox, or export the search results to an Outlook Data (PST) file.

2. Permanently delete an inactive mailbox

If you no longer need to preserve the contents of an inactive mailbox, you can permanently delete the inactive mailbox by removing the In-Place Hold. If the mailbox was deleted more than 30 days ago, the mailbox will be permanently deleted after you remove the In-Place Hold, and mailbox items will become non-recoverable. If the mailbox was deleted within the last 30 days, you can still restore the mailbox after removing the hold.

In Exchange Online, you can use In-Place Hold or Litigation Hold to accomplish the following goals:

Enable users to be placed on hold and preserve mailbox items immutably

Preserve mailbox items deleted by users or automatic deletion processes such as MRM

Protect mailbox items from tampering, changes by a user, or automatic processes by saving a copy of the original item

Preserve items indefinitely or for a specific duration

Keep holds transparent from the user by not having to suspend MRM

Use In-Place eDiscovery to search mailbox items, including items placed on hold

Additionally, you can use In-Place Hold to:

Search and hold items matching specified criteria

Place a user on multiple In-Place Holds for different cases or investigations

How does Litigation Hold function?

In the normal deleted item workflow, a mailbox item is moved to the Deletions subfolder in the Recoverable Items folder when a user permanently deletes it (Shift + Delete) or deletes it from the Deleted Items folder. A deletion policy (which is a retention tag configured with a Delete retention action) also moves items to the Deletions subfolder when the retention period expires. When a user purges an item in the Recoverable Items folder or when the deleted item retention period expires for an item, it's moved to the Purges subfolder in the Recoverable Items folder and marked for permanent deletion. It will be purged from Exchange the next time the mailbox is processed by the Managed Folder Assistant (MFA).

When a mailbox is placed on Litigation Hold, items in the Purges subfolder are preserved for the hold duration specified by the Litigation Hold. The hold duration is calculated from the original date an item was received or created, and defines how long items in the Purges subfolder are held. When the hold duration expires for an item in the Purges subfolder, the item is marked for permanent deletion and will be purged from Exchange the next time the mailbox is processed by the MFA. If an indefinite hold is placed on a mailbox, items will never be purged from the Purges subfolder.

The below illustration shows the subfolders in the Recoverable Items folders and the hold workflow process.

Office 365 E3 today for help in defining your needs, which licensing options would be the best fit, and actually getting the service configured correctly to ensure the right data is being kept and deleted.

About the author

Matt Scherocman brings more than 15 years of experience in the information technology industry to Interlink Cloud Advisors. His experience includes both the system integrator and manufacturer sides of the business. During his time at the Microsoft Corporation he was responsible for all the the Large Account Reseller (LAR) relationships in the four state Heartland Area of Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Prior to Microsoft, Scherocman led a Cincinnati based IT consulting company to grow 5000% and become a Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year. He is actively involved in the strategic vision and operation decisions of the company including finance, selling strategy and marketing. Matt holds a Bachelor of Science in Business degree from Miami University and is a Certified Expert in Microsoft licensing including speaking engagements at both Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference and Channel Partner Summit. He is a frequent contributor to leading industry publications.

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